whoopsie

As Thom John pointed out to me, I created our first REPEAT post yesterday!  Silly me!  When prepping a post, I generally make an album of photos and then write about the photos and the post evolves from there.  Well, I guess I made two albums with the same photos without realizing it.  Anyway, here's a snippet of our night tonight - that'll help erase any memory of the double-post :-)

Blizzard of 2016... part two

The kids' schools were closed on Monday and with two kids at home, two feet of snow on the ground, and an "alternate" train schedule in effect, I got to stay home with the kiddies.  We started off the morning pretty lazily, watching cartoons and playing tennis and bowling on the Wii.  On Sunday, I saw posts on Facebook from other local mommy friends that there is a big hill over at the local high school that makes for great sledding.  I took the kids over at mid-morning to check it out and it was AWESOME!  The hill was just the right for all ages - there were kids from toddler to high-school there having a good time.

The kids' last run after two+ hours of sledding and climbing up the hill - they went together this time and wiped out spectacularly!  That was the end our of sledding fun.  Afterwards, we went home and everyone napped for a couple of hours!

Leaf Paradise

The kids helped with some fall clean-up work this weekend - they helped to sweep our patio and then rake up leaves into a nice big pile:

After that, it was time to jump!

Sean lost interest after the jumping 10 times and wandered off to play while Clare enjoyed dancing and singing in the leaves:

Her very own song, "Leaf Paradise"

September at the Beach

No, we didn't get caught up in Pope Fever and we didn't board a flight with the Pope to Italy.  For Pope Weekend, we took the Sooy Babies to the beach!  Despite the clouds, the kids had a ball at the beach.  We even gave the lifeguards something to do - Clare and Sean got into a spat and Clare whacked Sean in the back with a sand shovel.  Sean ended up with a scrape and we asked the lifeguards for a bandage and all was well.

Here are a few snaps and a video from our afternoon:

Popeadelphia

Pope Francis is coming to Philadelphia this weekend!  After visiting Cuba, Washington DC, and New York, the Pope is coming to Philly to participate in the World Meeting of Families conference all weekend long.  We've been hearing about the visit for months but things really kicked into gear over the summer when closures and the final schedule was announced.  At the end of August, my office announced that due to the crazy train schedules, road closures, and extra security, we'd be closed on the Friday and Monday of the visit. Although the Sooys are not attending any of the festivities or masses this weekend with Pope Francis, it was still neat to watch the city transform in preparation.

On Sunday night, major parking restrictions were in place and that was evident first thing Monday morning when Market Street was clear of parked cars and there was considerably less traffic (also, large clusters of port-a-potties were springing up all over Center City)

On Tuesday, the "Pope Fence" started to go up around the secure perimeter which includes the Ben Franklin Parkway.

I took a quick walk up there during lunch to see what I could see.  The stage and the bleachers were getting set up at Eakins Oval.

The Parkway looks like it does before a major race like the Philly marathon, but with more HD screens and Secret Service.

Greeting Pope Francis, the Philly way:

And a last shot of the Ben Franklin Parkway before I left work on Wednesday:

Philly is excited, and judging by this video, Pope Francis is looking forward to the visit, too.

Queen of the Pool

While Sean had swimming lessons everyday at camp this summer, Clare kept up with swimming lessons with her teacher.  She showed us her progress at the beach these past two weeks, bravely boogie boarding, body surfing, and ducking under the water!  Tonight was her first lesson back after two weeks at the beach and she really took things up a notch!  Check out her new "trick"!

Wednesday and Thursday evenings

Wednesday and Thursday nights have gotten busy for us.  Wednesdays at 6, Sean has tennis practice.  His best girl, Madison, is in the class too.  And that is good because she helps Sean focus and pay attention to the coach :-)  He's learning all the parts of the court and the terminology and playing lots of fun games and running races.

After tennis, we go to Clare's swimming lesson - she's making great strides!  She's working on swimming on her own and going underwater.  She's still uncomfortable with floating on her back, but she's getting braver each week.

On Thursdays, Seany has baseball practice.  While he's working out on the field, Clare likes to pick dandelions, run around, and try to get on the field... and mug for the camera, of course!